The obvious objection to these experiments, that an ant observing a friend bringing home food or a pupa might infer, without being told, that by accompanying the friend on the return journey she 'might participate in the good things,' has been partly met by the fact already stated, viz., that there is so very marked a difference in the result if, on experimenting on two ants, one had access to a large treasure and the other only to a small one. But to put this matter beyond question, Sir John Lubbock tried the experiment of pinning down a dead fly, so that the ant which found it was unable, with all her tugging, to move it towards the nest. At length she went back to the nest for assistance, and returned accompanied by seven friends. So great was her excitement, however, that she outran these friends, 'who seemed to have come out reluctantly, as if they had been asleep, and were only half awake;' and they failed to find the fly, slowly meandering about for twenty minutes. After again tugging for a time at the fly, the first ant returned a second time to the nest for assistance, and in less than a minute came out with eight friends. They were even less energetic than the first party, and having lost sight of their guide in the same manner as happened before, they all returned to the nest. Meanwhile several of the first party, which had all the while been meandering about, found the fly, and proceeded to dismember it, carrying the trophy to the nest, and calling out more friends in the ordinary way. This experiment was repeated several times and on different species, always with the same result. Now, as Sir John remarks, 'the two cases (_i.e._ those in which the ant brought out friends to her assistance even when she had no booty to show) surely indicate a distinct power of communication. . . . It is impossible to doubt that the friends were brought out by the first ant; and as she returned empty-handed to the nest, the others cannot have been induced to follow her by merely observing her proceedings. I conclude, therefore, that they possess the power of requesting their friends to come and help them.' In order to ascertain whether the signs which communicating ants make to one another are made by means of sound, Sir John Lubbock placed near a nest of _Lasius flavus_ six small upright pillars of wood about 1-1/2 inch high, and on one of these he put a drop of honey. 'I then put three ants to the honey, and when each had sufficiently fed, I imprisoned her, and put another; thus always keeping three ants at the honey, but not allowing them to go home. If, then, they could summon their friends by sound, there ought soon to be many ants at the honey.' The result showed that the ants were not able thus to call to one another from a distance.